Posts tagged with law blockmates

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December 4, 2009

Still their blockmate

Our household hosted a baby shower for two of my blockmates last week. I appreciate that my blockmates decided to hold the get-together at my place, despite having been out of UP Law for months, I’m technically not their blockmate anymore. Apparently, my blockmates haven’t been seeing each other as much as we did in our freshman year because of the recently-implemented de-blocking scheme.

Hearing from my blockmates news and stories about recent happenings in Malcolm Hall made me think that it was probably good for me that I got out of law school early. It appears as if the law school’s administration, obsessed with regaining from its rival law schools the top ranking in bar exam passing rates, has been on a stringent mission to cut off the bottom-ranking students or simply, students they feel like will not pass the bar. I, myself, failed two subjects in my freshman year and that it, I’m out, no questions asked. I heard some senior students were kicked out recently for a failing mark they got during the previous semester compounded with grades they incurred during their freshman year. Senior students apparently have lost their immunity from dismissal.

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August 9, 2009

Hanging on in the meantime

Last Saturday, I still took my midterm exams in Insurance. The previous night, I struggled to muster enough enthusiasm to review. At the back of my mind played the thought that staying up that late and re-reading piles of cases was worthless, because at the end of the day, it wouldn’t matter if I pass or if I get a high score in the exam because I won’t be able to enroll next semester anyway. However, I’ve decided to just go on. I will try to attend classes in the coming days while I await the final advice form the UP Law administration, in the rare and slim chance that I get through by some miracle–without being too hopeful, of course. Sure, it may be a waste of time and energy if what’s supposed to happen is inevitable. I just try to think of it as a way for me to take advantage of my last days in Malcolm Hall, and perhaps, for the pure desire to learn, regardless of the fact that I won’t earn any academic credit for it.

In between reviewing for the exam, I was also hopping over next-door for my undergraduate college organization‘s anniversary night, being held at the restaurant beside the coffee shop I was hanging out at. It was great seeing my contemporaries again, and catching up on their careers. Most of them are in media companies, for obvious reasons. As for myself, I told them I’m still in law school, though I left out the part where I was supposed to say I’m struggling to stay in law. It wasn’t a time to dampen the mood of people.

Last night I also went to another party, it was Inter-B, the inter-batch party of UP Law’s block B’s. The sophomores, that’s our batch, organized the event. Since I’m about to be out of the college soon anyway, I might as well attend the last inter-batch party I can attend as a student. I will miss my blockmates. They’ve been so supportive all along, ever since we all started out last year.

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August 5, 2009

I shall write more about my law school experience

I shall start to attempt writing down chronicles of my stay in law school. Perhaps it can be a way for me to totally imbibe the law school routine. Sometimes I feel like the reason why I don’t blog much about my experiences in law school is that I feel like everything is just some negligible routine which I don’t bother remembering for posterity. Up until now, I still don’t feel like I totally want to become a lawyer. I just struggle my way in the College of Law one day at a time, without fixating on the finish line or the thought of graduating too much. It’s difficult enough to think about getting by each week, after all. But that’s not right. I’m on my second year, and there’s no turning back.

Anyway, certainly there are things you don’t appreciate till they’re gone. This won’t be another Cory Aquino-related blog entry, though. (God bless her soul as the nation escorts her to her final resting place today). Yesterday the entire air-conditioning system of the College was down. It was like some inconvenient server crash. Some people know how much I sweat, often more than others. Needless to say, I was sweating profusely in my two classes. To make things worse, I got called for recitation and I was largely unprepared. And even more unfortunately, it was one of those sessions when I was the only one who was called to recite during the entire two-hour lecture. It was just one of those days. I got by, nonetheless, with lucky guesses and my classmates’ “radio coaching”.

In another matter, I’ve recently discovered the convenience of studying at Malcolm Hall’s student lounge. For the longest time since my freshman days, I always went to the library or to some coffee shop outside school to study during long breaks or after class. There seemed to be no other choice if I didn’t want to go home yet. However, the past weeks, since I lost my ID and the guard has blacklisted me from the library, I was forced to find an alternative academic hang-out, where I don’t have to buy anything. And then there was the student lounge at the ground floor. I always thought it was an exclusive tambayan for some law school cliques. Not quite, really. It was a homey, air-conditioned lounge complete with couches and other fixtures. Pretty neat.

Wow. This entry sounds quite mundane! Well, it’s a start. Hopefully if I get the hang of this, I shall write about some (academic) lessons learned, too, not only so that I could share them with everyone, but so I could recall them more easily, perhaps, (because I would be forced to digest legal doctrines and cases, unless you want me to write lengthily about them).

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June 9, 2009

B ushers in B

With the new de-blocking system in place at the UP College of Law, the traditional block culture may be gone. Starting this year, only freshmen will get to have the same classmates in all their classes. After their first year, UP Law students can choose their professors and classes individually, through a bidding and registration system similar to US law schools, apparently. There are various reasons to this, as explained by the Dean during his talk with Batch 2012 yesterday. Ultimately it is to give the individual student the privilege to take the classes and the schedule that would best suit his needs that would hopefully result to better performance.

Despite the de-blocking policy, however, my blockmates and I coordinated among each other, and along with other blocks in Batch 2012, in order for original blockmates to remain with each other in our classes this first semester of our second year. I guess most of us have become clingy with each other the past year. Undoubtedly, and speaking from experience, one’s blockmates is one of the more reliable support groups in law school a law student can have. Indeed, the bond that uniquely shared experiences can forge among law students can be strong for some.

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April 11, 2009

At the Portia Ball

A few Sundays ago, I attended the ball of Portia Sorority as the date of a dear friend and blockmate, Nessa (who just won as top USC councilor for STAND-UP). It’s been a while since I’ve been to a ball. And it was, if my memory serves me right, the first time I danced in a cotillon. We pulled it off, despite just two practice sessions.

The ball was held at the Manila Polo Club.

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